The Wine Connoisseur

For the person in your life who partakes in the “spitting” portion of a wine tasting – and the one who doesn’t

The wine snob is easy to locate: Simply discuss that time in college when you drank wine from a box and watch for the first person who faints or the one who charges in your direction with an obvious intent to preach at you. Once you have located your passionate, fermented grape lover, accept that you will forever be the victim of drills on the best vintage from Napa to Bordeaux. Just accept it. Note that wine “connoisseurs” come in several degrees. It’s likely that the only one at the table capable of reading a wine menu may be granted that title but truly it’s the one with a wine budget that rivals the yearly mortgage you must tread lightly with. No matter the degree of connoisseur, skip the goliath task of selecting the proper wine and instead opt for gifting the tools that transform every glass into an experience.

Chelsea Sanz has lived in East Tennessee since her family moved here from South Florida just before she started high school. While she initially begrudged her new home state, she eventually realized she had come to not only love it, but to “bleed orange” as University of Tennessee Volunteers fans here like to say. She and her boyfriend Hunter, a trail worker for Great Smoky Mountains National Park, enjoy exploring the nation’s most visited national park and coming up with their own farm-to-table recipes.